Search results for "IMPACT"
showing 10 items of 1703 documents
Marble quarrying: an energy and waste intensive activity in the production of building materials
2008
Marble represents an important component of Italian buildings, where it is often utilized as a covering for bottom surfaces, despite its relatively high price. Moreover, it characterizes several public buildings, for which it is by far the most important decorative material, also because of its structural features and its long durability. Unfortunately, marble quarrying is an energy intensive activity that requires relevant amounts of electric and thermal energy sources; in addition, the extraction of the marble blocks from the mountain sides does involve a noticeable quantity of explosives, particularly in sites where traditional working methods are utilized. Another important feature of t…
Prospects for combining chemical and biological methods for integrated environmental assessment
2009
Abstract Inherently interdisciplinary, environmental assessment applied to contamination is evolving rapidly, despite associated uncertainties in methodologies and data limitations. Mixtures of known and unknown pollutants can cause toxic effects in the environment. Besides deploying a chemicals-driven strategy for the ecological risk assessment of the pollutants, it is necessary to apply and to explore biological strategies. Consequently, bioassays, biosensors and effect-directed analysis (EDA) to identify pollutants responsible of particular effects have become increasingly important. We give a broad overview of how to assess biological monitoring of ecosystems and chemical monitoring of …
Multivariate analysis of historical data (2004-2013) in assessing the possible environmental impact of the Bellolampo landfill (Palermo).
2017
Multivariate analysis was performed on a large data set of groundwater and leachate samples collected during 9 years of operation of the Bellolampo municipal solid waste landfill (located above Palermo, Italy). The aim was to obtain the most likely correlations among the data. The analysis results are presented. Groundwater samples were collected in the period 2004–2013, whereas the leachate analysis refers to the period 2006–2013. For groundwater, statistical data evaluation revealed notable differences among the samples taken from the numerous wells located around the landfill. Characteristic parameters revealed by principal component analysis (PCA) were more deeply investigated, and corr…
The Seasonality Impact of the BTEX Pollution on the Atmosphere of Arad City, Romania
2021
Benzene, toluene, and total BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) concentrations registered for one year (2016) have been determined every month for one high-density traffic area. The assessment was performed in Arad City, Romania, to evaluate these pollutants and their influence on the inhabitants’ health. The contaminants were sampled using a static sampling method and analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Benzene was the most dominant among the BTEX compounds—the average concentrations ranged from 18.00 ± 1.32 µg m−3 in December to 2.47 ± 0.74 µg m−3 in August. The average toluene concentration over the year was 4.36 ± 2.42 µg m−3 (with a maximum of 9…
CHARACTERIZATION OF VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS AND ODOUR POLLUTION IN ATMOSPHERE AT OIL AND GASOLINE HANDLING AND PROCESSING IMPACT ZONE
2019
Air quality pollution problem is still one of the crucial points for citizens in Europe for already receiving increasing attention, particularly because of the major European cities 10 and more years. Although the EU's long-term goal is to achieve levels of air quality that do not impact and risks to human health and the environment, many of member states still didn`t reach stated goals. Additionally, to gaseous pollutants, recently specific type of pollution, - odour, seems to become more important. Usually in order to determine pollution levels, national, municipal and private monitoring equipment is used. For this research municipal monitoring site in Riga (Latvia), at Milgravja Street 1…
The environmental impact of air pollution on the built heritage of historic Cairo (Egypt)
2020
In the last decades, many researchers investigated the relation between environmental pollution and the degradation phenomena on the built heritage, because of their rapid increase and growing harmfulness. Consequently, the identification of the main pollution sources has become essential to define mitigation actions against degradation and alteration phenomena of the stone materials. In this way, the present paper is focused on the study of the effect of air pollution on archaeological buildings in Historic Cairo. A multi-methodological approach was used to obtain information about the chemical composition of examined black crusts and to clarify their correlation with the air pollution, sp…
Bioaccumulation, Biodistribution, Toxicology and Biomonitoring of Organofluorine Compounds in Aquatic Organisms
2021
This review is a survey of recent advances in studies concerning the impact of poly- and perfluorinated organic compounds in aquatic organisms. After a brief introduction on poly- and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) features, an overview of recent monitoring studies is reported illustrating ranges of recorded concentrations in water, sediments, and species. Besides presenting general concepts defining bioaccumulative potential and its indicators, the biodistribution of PFCs is described taking in consideration different tissues/organs of the investigated species as well as differences between studies in the wild or under controlled laboratory conditions. The potential use of species as bioi…
The impact of landfills on the air quality of towns: A simple heuristic model for the city of Palermo
2009
In this study, the landfill of Palermo, is investigated as a potential source of the unusual methane concentrations found in the urban context. The source for these pollution episodes is identified by means of a simple heuristic method. A cross-correlation analysis between wind data and methane concentration levels is also used to confirm the hypotheses formulated. Doppler Sound Detection And Ranging (SODAR) measurements are used to investigate the air masses dynamics at the landfill, in order to better support the adopted assumptions. This interpretative method can be adopted in the first assessment stages of the environmental site performance in order to single out the candidate pollution…
Towards A New Decision Support System for Design, Management and Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gases Emiss…
2015
The increasing attention paid to the environment has led to a reduction in the emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Moreover, the increasing interest in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from WWTPs suggests that we reconsider the traditional tools used for designing and managing WWTPs. Indeed, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane can be emitted from wastewater treatment, significantly contributing to the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. The reduction of energy consumption as well as GHG emission are of particular concern for large WWTPs which treat the majority of wastewater in terms of both volume and pollution load. Nowadays, there is an increasing need to develop new …
Effect of external basalt layers on durability behaviour of flax reinforced composites
2016
Abstract Aim of this work is to evaluate the influence of external layers of basalt-mat on the durability behaviour of flax reinforced epoxy composites. To this scope, long-term ageing tests were performed on two different laminates in critical environmental conditions. The first laminate, named Flax, was constituted by stacking ten layers of bidirectional flax fabrics. The second one, named Flax–Basalt, was produced by replacing two external flax layers with two layers of basalt mat for each side of the laminate. Both laminates were exposed to salt-fog environmental conditions, according to ASTM B 117 standard, for 60 days. Five samples per laminate were removed from salt-fog spray chamber…